Sports Random, Random

[Fastbackss]

I feel like the Little League denial is a precursor of larger issues for the major sporting events of next 18 months.

On a cheerier note - a co-worker of mine was on ESPN2 (the ocho) for the Pop a Shot national championship. It was actually published on our internal network. And he ended up winning. In Orlando. (At least someone in our office did good in Orlando (I didn't make it out of my flight at USTA nationals earlier this year))

[ti-amie]

I feel like the Little League denial is a precursor of larger issues for the major sporting events of next 18 months.

On a cheerier note - a co-worker of mine was on ESPN2 (the ocho) for the Pop a Shot national championship. It was actually published on our internal network. And he ended up winning. In Orlando. (At least someone in our office did good in Orlando (I didn't make it out of my flight at USTA nationals earlier this year))

President Trump floats military use at L.A. Olympics, says there will be gender testing

By Zack Pierce
Aug. 6, 2025Updated 2:05 pm EDT
19

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to establish a task force that will handle security around the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, saying that he might utilize the military while also asserting there would be “some form” of gender testing for athletes competing in women’s sports.

Flanked by members of his administration, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and LA28 — the organizing committee for the 2028 Games — Trump said the task force was meant to “(mobilize) the entire federal government to ensure the Games are safe, seamless and historically successful.”

A few minutes into his prepared remarks, Trump changed topics. He turned to Gene Sykes, chair of the USOPC’s board of directors, to thank him “for recently banning men from competing in women’s sports.” The USOPC changed its policy on transgender athletes last month to comply with Trump’s executive order in February that seeks to bar athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports unless assigned female at birth.

“The United States will not let men steal trophies from women at the 2028 Olympics,” Trump said.

USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland had previously said that “it’s not our role” to decide athlete eligibility. In a letter to its stakeholders after the change, though, Hirshland and Sykes said that all national governing bodies “are required to update their applicable policies in alignment” with Trump’s order.

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, the eligibility of two women’s boxers was the subject of controversy. Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting were both deemed ineligible a year earlier at the 2023 world championships by the International Boxing Association, which said tests had shown they had advantages over other women. The IBA provided almost no details to back up the claims.

The IBA — which is in a years-long dispute with the International Olympic Committee — no longer oversees the Olympic boxing program. The IOC, which formed a task force to govern boxing at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, allowed Khelif and Lin to compete in Paris, and both won gold with ease in their respective weight classes.

Khelif and Lin were assigned female at birth and have always identified as women. The IOC repeatedly defended their inclusion, asserting both met eligibility requirements.

Kirsty Coventry, the former Olympic swimmer and new president of the IOC, made gender eligibility one of the top issues of her campaign. She has called for a task force of her own on the matter.

“The overarching principle must be to protect the female category,” she said.

Less than three years out from the L.A. Games, it’s unclear what will come of Coventry’s task force or how Trump’s executive order and testing pledge will be enforced. But with the administration, the USOPC and the IOC all in line, it’s likely to have an impact on the 2028 Olympics.

“There will be a very, very strong form of testing,” Trump said Tuesday. “And if the test doesn’t come out appropriately, they won’t be in the Olympics.”

Khelif plans to box at the 2028 Games, which World Boxing — a new governing body, formed in 2023 — will sanction. Khelif told British broadcaster ITV in March that she is not deterred by Trump’s executive order.

“This does not concern me, and it does not intimidate me,” Khelif said. “That is my response.”

Some of the organizing bodies that oversee the various Olympic sports have already moved toward testing procedures. World Athletics, which guides international track and field, has said it will begin implementing a cheek-swabbing test to look for a gene that is an indicator of male-typical sex development.

For Trump’s security task force, which he plans to oversee as chairman, he said the executive order would give several federal departments and agencies “every tool at their disposal to ensure a fantastic, safe and beautiful event.” The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that recently passed through Congress and was signed into law last month allocated $1 billion for 2028 Olympic security funding.

LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman praised the Trump administration’s support and said the bill would provide local and state agencies with funding “to make sure that our Games are safe and secure and ultimately the best place to experience and be an Olympic fan.”

How those local agencies will work with the Republican administration is another question. Trump has repeatedly clashed with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom, both Democrats.

In response to protests about his immigration policies, Trump in June deployed thousands of National Guard and Marine troops to Los Angeles. Asked Tuesday about safety around the Games, Trump suggested he would consider using the military in L.A. again for the Olympics if he felt it was needed.

“We’ll do anything necessary to keep the Olympics safe, including using our National Guard or military,” Trump said. “No, I will use the National Guard or military — this is going to be so safe — if I have to.”

The 2028 Olympics are scheduled from July 14-30, 2028, throughout the greater Los Angeles area.


https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/653823 ... -military/

[ponchi101]

Let's see how this goes:
Suspended U.S. sprinter Fred Kerley becomes first American male track and field athlete to join Enhanced Games
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/ ... fa9d&ei=17

[ti-amie]

Sam Freedman
‪@samfr.bsky.social‬
Shane Lowry holing an eagle putt and shouting "(expletive) you" at the American crowd is the highlight of the Ryder Cup so far.

Even better than McIlroy telling to "shut the (expletive) up" earlier.

NanaGale
‪@nanagale.bsky.social‬
The American crowds are disgusting at the Ryder Cup.

summum bonum‬
‪@joe-hamilton.bsky.social‬
· 1h
It's The MAGA crowd showing their poor breeding



Ron Filipkowski‬
‪@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social‬
· 20h
He brought his leadership to the Ryder Cup today and the US won 2 of 8 matches.

[ti-amie]

Sigh

🆂ports🅽ews ‍ Faster Than Referee's Whistle‬
‪@sportnewws.bsky.social‬
· 29s

#Cup #Fan #Rory McIlroy #Ryder Cup #Shane Lowry



https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/golf/sha ... y-35977541

[ti-amie]

The Athletic‬
‪@theathletic.com‬
· 1h
Team Europe retains the Ryder Cup

[dryrunguy]

There's not much in this world I detest more than unfettered nationalism.

[ti-amie]

US fan ugliness at the Ryder Cup was merely a reflection of Trump’s all-caps America
European players were subjected to slurs and crude insults about their families. They were no surprise as public discourse in America has broken down

Bryan Armen Graham at Bethpage Black
Sun 28 Sep 2025 17.28 EDT

US fan ugliness at the Ryder Cup was merely a reflection of Trump’s all-caps America

By the time Europe finished the job, finally, on Sunday, the golf had the last word. But, until the thrilling denouement, the lasting memory of this Ryder Cup threatened not to be a single swing of the club so much as the ugly backdrop: galleries that drifted from partisan into venomous and the organizers who let the line slide until it snapped.

It didn’t happen all at once. For the first day and a half of golf’s most intense rivalry, it was New York-loud without being unruly. Then Saturday afternoon arrived and the tenor shifted. Rory McIlroy, the visiting lightning rod, kept stepping off shots as volleys of abuse landed in the quiet of his pre-shot routine. Shane Lowry played teammate and minder. Justin Thomas, not exactly a shrinking violet, began shushing his own end of the grandstand so his opponents could putt.

There’s a difference between atmosphere and interference, and Bethpage spent too much of the weekend blurring the two. Boos during practice swings and the sing-song “YEW-ESS-AY! YEW-ESS-AY!” after a European miss were tiresome, but survivable. What crept in on Saturday was different: insults aimed at players’ wives, homophobic slurs, cheap shots at McIlroy’s nationality dripping with tiresome stereotypes, gleeful reminders of Pinehurst the moment McIlroy crouched over anything inside five feet.

Europe answered with performance. So much for home advantage: for two years the Bethpage sales pitch was the snarling, uniquely American cauldron that would rattle Europe. Message received, but the idiots took it literally. Add the optics of Donald Trump’s fly-in on Friday – fist bumps, photo-ops, galleries dotted with Maga hats and a certain politics of humiliation playing to its base – and the swagger slid easily into license. That doesn’t make the Ryder Cup a referendum. It does explain how quickly the rope line starts to feel like a boundary you’re invited to test.

Given the guest of honor’s well-known aversion to losing gracefully, it was hardly a shock that the ugliest behavior broke out just as America’s chances were slipping away. But the tournament’s response to the ugly crowd behavior on Saturday was woeful. Extra security and a phalanx of New York state troopers materialized around McIlroy’s match at the turn. A couple of spectators were ejected near the main grandstands. The PGA of America said it bolstered policing and pushed more frequent spectator etiquette messages on the big screens. Fine, as far as it goes. But once a thousand people have decided a backswing is their cue, you can’t manage it with a graphic and a frown. Enforcement has to be swift, visible and consequential or it becomes permission by another name.

Sunday brought a tacit admission that the line had been crossed. The first-tee master of ceremonies, the comedian Heather McMahan, stepped down from her role after video showed her leading a chant of “(expletive) you Rory!” on Saturday morning. The PGA announced her departure and apology before the singles. If the MC is amplifying the worst instincts in the building, that’s not “energy”; it’s an institutional failure.

Luke Donald chose his words carefully as he praised his team’s “anti-fragile” temperament and drew a firm boundary between “raucous” and “personal”. Keegan Bradley, the USA captain, bristled at any suggestion the US room had licensed the excess. He called the fans passionate and pointed – not incorrectly – to his team’s flat play as a trigger for their restlessness. But that defense only goes so far. You can be partisan without being toxic. You can fill a grandstand without emptying your standards.

It’s also true that many Americans tried to keep the thing on the rails. Thomas kept waving for hush. Cameron Young never took the bait. Plenty of fans actually supported their own rather than savaging the other lot. Too often, though, they were drowned out by the performative tough guys in flag suits and plastic chains who treat the Ryder Cup like a tailgate with better lawn care.

But treating Bethpage as a one-off misses the larger point. What happened here didn’t invent the tone of American life so much as reflect what’s been an incremental breakdown in public behavior. The country now lives in all-caps, from school-board meetings that sound like street rallies and comment sections that have spilled into the street. The algorithm bankrolls outrage, the put-down is political vernacular and the culture applauds “saying the quiet part out loud”. In 2025 you can say almost anything in public and be cheered for it (unless you’re Jimmy Kimmel). Put a rope line and a microphone in front of that mix and you get exactly what you got at the Ryder Cup: people testing boundaries not because the moment needs them to, but because they’ve been told volume is virtue. Some might argue golf, in the US particularly, has always been a sport for white conservatives, but it’s hard to remember galleries calling opposing players “faggots” and openly deriding their wives until recently. What could have changed?

Europe didn’t need rescuing. They rescued themselves. That could be seen on Saturday, when McIlroy and Lowry won their afternoon match two up in the eye of the storm. Rose and Fleetwood then dispatched Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau 3&2 after a tense exchange about who had the stage; then they took the stage and won. Donald’s players came to New York expecting a test of nerve and got it at full blast

Sunday gave us a memorable finish. But this week will also be remembered for the noise that wasn’t passion, the hostility that wasn’t edge and the adults who mistook the difference. Next time the cup crosses the Atlantic, at Hazeltine in 2029, whether during Trump’s third term or not, the hosts will have a choice to make about what kind of event they want to run – and what kind of country they want it to reflect.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... ry-mcilroy

[skatingfan]

And next year is the World Cup, and then 2028 Olympics - will they be reminiscent of the 1980 Moscow Olympics?

[Oploskoffie]

Honestly, I tuned out before the Ryder Cup even started, not least because of the need for this:

Europe using VR abuse to prepare for Ryder Cup

https://www.bbc.com/sport/golf/articles/cnvr5675y9go

[Oploskoffie]

And next year is the World Cup, and then 2028 Olympics - will they be reminiscent of the 1980 Moscow Olympics?

At this rate, how about 1936?

[skatingfan]

At this rate, how about 1936?

Maybe, but I mentioned 1980 because of the fan abuse during those Olympics including throwing items in front of runners from other countries.

[ashkor87]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... ns-cricket

the Indian women cricketers did something the men couldn't.. beat mighty Australia in a World Cup semifinal.. they had been something like 1-11 until now..
finals now against South Africa - also a formidable team.